vvo/iron-session
Iron Session
iron-session is a stateless session management library for JavaScript that stores encrypted and signed session data directly in browser cookies. It functions as authentication middleware to verify user identity without requiring a server-side database or network lookups for session retrieval.
The project provides a symmetric key encryption tool that supports versioned password rotation. This allows encryption keys to be updated across a system without invalidating active user sessions.
Beyond session management, the library includes utilities to seal arbitrary data objects into secure signed strings and unseal them to ensure content has not been tampered with. These capabilities support the generation of secure tokens and magic login links.
Features
- Cookie-Based Session Management - Implements session management by storing encrypted and signed data directly in browser cookies.
- Stateless Session Management - Implements a stateless session system that stores encrypted data in cookies to eliminate server-side database lookups.
- Cookie-Based Stores - Uses cookies as stores for encrypted application state to prevent client-side tampering.
- Cryptographic Signing Methods - Provides cryptographic signing to ensure the integrity and authenticity of session data.
- Digital Message Signing - Produces cryptographic signatures for session data to prevent tampering.
- Cookie-Based Session Storage - Provides a storage mechanism that persists application state in the browser using symmetric encryption and signing.
- Session & Cookie Handlers - Handles the reading and setting of encrypted browser cookies to persist user state.
- Session Cookie Authentications - Uses encrypted browser cookies as a secure storage mechanism to maintain user sessions.
- Symmetric Encryption - Uses symmetric encryption with a shared secret to maintain session data confidentiality.
- Stateless Architectures - Enables request processing without server-side session state by decoding data from cookies.
- Authentication Middlewares - Provides authentication middleware for JavaScript applications to verify identity via cryptographically sealed cookies.
- Cryptographic Data Sealing - Combines encryption and signing to seal arbitrary data objects into secure strings for tokens.
- Cryptographic Unsealing - Verifies signed strings to decode original data and ensure it has not been tampered with.
- Versioned Password Rotation - Supports versioned password rotation to update encryption keys without forcing active users to re-authenticate.
- Versioned Key Rotations - Supports updating encryption keys using a versioned history to avoid invalidating active sessions.
- Session Lifecycle Management - Manages the creation, rotation, and expiration of cryptographically secured sessions.
- User Session Termination - Provides the ability to programmatically terminate user sessions by removing the session cookie.
- Token Generation - Generates cryptographically secure encrypted strings for use in magic links and access tokens.
- Authentication Workflows - Provides a secure authentication and state persistence workflow specifically for Next.js applications.
Star history
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